Sony "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray Titles May 14 and July 16

[Scottie]

So is this going to be the new technology in the future?

[Spicoli]

Originally Posted by blu-ray_girl_fan

Let's get crankin'!

[Snicket]

Originally Posted by iScottie

So is this going to be the new technology in the future?

When we can figure out how to have a disc that holds 10 TB of data to hold true 4K then yes.

Right now it's...whatever.

[Spicoli]

Originally Posted by Snicket

When we can figure out how to have a disc that holds 10 TB of data to hold true 4K then yes.

Right now it's...whatever.

One article pictured it like a van had to come to your house to download it to your device.

[blu-ray_girl_fan]

Originally Posted by Spicoli

One article pictured it like a van had to come to your house to download it to your device.

People already complain about BD loading times. Can you imagine waiting for someone to drive to your house, transfer a huge file from a hard drive to your TV, only to discover that the file transfer was corrupted due to a bad sector?

[5th Of November]

Originally Posted by Spicoli

One article pictured it like a van had to come to your house to download it to your device.

This is just a new form of DRM

[Spicoli]

Originally Posted by blu-ray_girl_fan

People already complain about BD loading times. Can you imagine waiting for someone to drive to your house, transfer a huge file from a hard drive to your TV, only to discover that the file transfer was corrupted due to a bad sector?

[Sith]

Originally Posted by blu-ray_girl_fan

Guys, the movies are mastered in 4K, but they're not encoded in 4K. That means the Blu-rays still have only 1080p. The 4K file is in a hard drive somewhere in Sonyland.

I was wondering how far the thread I would have to read till someone pointed this out.

[movie]

How about Sony and others have a good look at their libraries and clean up all their current blu's that are lacking before promoting 4k.

[octagon]

This could have a good side-effect though.

Whether it's meaningless or not, if consumers respond to the phrase 'mastered in 4K' it could lead studios away from recycling older masters just so they can put the good, attention-getting label on releases.

I'm thinking back to the DVD era. 'Digitally remastered' didn't necessarily mean a good transfer but it did usually mean a newer one.

[willbfree]

They (labels) pull the same B.S. with some music CDs, touting "24 bit master". How many bits does the CD actually have? 16, same as always - but they don't highlight that fact, they just hope the public will think there's something high fidelity about the CD.

[neo_reloaded]

This is nothing but a marketing gimmick. If a film had a 4K master available, they'd be foolish not to use that as the source for a Blu-ray release - the fact that 4K TVs now exist has NOTHING to do with that. All the titles announced so far are ALREADY mastered from a 4K source as that is Sony's workflow for new theatrical releases.

I'm all for studios doing what is necessary to ensure good sources for theatrical and blu-ray releases - be it rescanning and doing restoration work on older films, or improving the quality of their workflow for new releases. It helps create stunning 1080p Blu-ray releases, and would obviously be necessary for any hypothetical future 4K-native format. But this is not that format - it is nothing but "Superbit Blu-ray," and it's not like Sony's BDs were lacking in the encoding quality department in the first place.

More thoughts - http://www.thegutterpalate.com/2013/...k-blu-ray.html

[5th Of November]

This isn't a gimmick. Not all Blu-rays are created from 4k or higher masters. This is ensuring that there will be 4k masters for future 4k Blu-ray discs and those 4k masters will be transferred to 1080p for use on current players.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

This is nothing but a marketing gimmick. If a film had a 4K master available, they'd be foolish not to use that as the source for a Blu-ray release - the fact that 4K TVs now exist has NOTHING to do with that. All the titles announced so far are ALREADY mastered from a 4K source as that is Sony's workflow for new theatrical releases.

I'm all for studios doing what is necessary to ensure good sources for theatrical and blu-ray releases - be it rescanning and doing restoration work on older films, or improving the quality of their workflow for new releases. It helps create stunning 1080p Blu-ray releases, and would obviously be necessary for any hypothetical future 4K-native format. But this is not that format - it is nothing but "Superbit Blu-ray," and it's not like Sony's BDs were lacking in the encoding quality department in the first place.

More thoughts - http://www.thegutterpalate.com/2013/...k-blu-ray.html

Definitely a gimmick still being 1080p blu-ray discs. But if we get at least a few (NEW) 4K sourced catalogue transfers out of it, at least it's worth something. Of course it remains to be seen if they will even do that, or if it this will just be relabeling of the most recent/modern transfers that are probably already 4K anyway.

[Snicket]

Originally Posted by 5th Of November

This isn't a gimmick. Not all Blu-rays are created from 4k or higher masters. This is ensuring that there will be 4k masters for future 4k Blu-ray discs and those 4k masters will be transferred to 1080p for use on current players.

It's a gimmick in the sense that the discs are nowhere close to true 4K resolution.

"4K Blu-ray Discs" is a bit of an oxymoron, like saying it's a "DVD Blu-ray".

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by 5th Of November

This isn't a gimmick. Not all Blu-rays are created from 4k or higher masters. This is ensuring that there will be 4k masters for future 4k Blu-ray discs and those 4k masters will be transferred to 1080p for use on current players.

Having 4K masters isn't a gimmick. Making a line of Blu-rays that are labeled "Mastered in 4K" but are still actually 1080p IS a gimmick.

Are BDs from 4K masters better than those from 2K/1080p masters? Undoubtably. Would I be for all studios being transparent and stating on the box what the quality of the master they used was? Definitely. If Sony was committing to remastering a larger quantity of old films in 4K, or pushing for more transparency about the quality of masters used, I'd be all for it.

But nothing new is introduced by this line, nothing is changed. The Amazing Spider-Man, Total Recall, etc. ALREADY have Blu-rays mastered from 4K. The ones you can go to the store and buy right now. Nothing new is being done for these releases - it's just a new marketing line on the same master. Maybe it'll be re-encoded with slightly higher bitrate, but Sony BDs are already good in that respect so I can't imagine there will be much improvement.

It's literally just pointing out "Hey! This small handful of films come from 4K masters. Cool huh?"

[Spicoli]

Originally Posted by 5th Of November

This isn't a gimmick. Not all Blu-rays are created from 4k or higher masters. This is ensuring that there will be 4k masters for future 4k Blu-ray discs and those 4k masters will be transferred to 1080p for use on current players.

All masters that are already 4K of course will be used and not downgraded and that is already happening. This newly packaged version of Battle: Los Angeles wont look any different than the current.

Originally Posted by AgentOrange

Definitely a gimmick still being 1080p blu-ray discs. But if we get at least a few (NEW) 4K sourced catalogue transfers out of it, at least it's worth something. Of course it remains to be seen if they will even do that, or if it this will just be relabeling of the most recent/modern transfers that are probably already 4K anyway.

YUP


Until you have a 4K display fed by 4K content, 4K means nothing. (unless you're telling me that the disc you made is from a 4k master lol)

[5th Of November]

Originally Posted by Snicket

It's a gimmick in the sense that the discs are nowhere close to true 4K resolution.

"4K Blu-ray Discs" is a bit of an oxymoron, like saying it's a "DVD Blu-ray".

I'm talking about actual 4K Blu-ray discs to be released in the future, not 4K downconverted to 1080P, which is what Mastered in 4K is. You'll need a new player to play 4K Blu-ray discs. You don't need a new player to play Mastered in 4K downconverted to 1080p.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by 5th Of November

This isn't a gimmick. Not all Blu-rays are created from 4k or higher masters. This is ensuring that there will be 4k masters for future 4k Blu-ray discs and those 4k masters will be transferred to 1080p for use on current players.

It's a gimmick if they are just taking masters which were already done at 4K, and just re-badging them.

Hopefully at least a few of them are "upgraded" sources, or better yet titles entirely new to blu-ray sourced from 4K scans (i.e. catalogue titles scanned at 4K). It seems like the ones they've announced (just 5 titles) were probably already from 4K master - seems like the ones they announced are from very recent theatrical releases and blu-rays. So I suspect a re-branding, even if it's a newer encoding I suspect very little difference to the original blu-ray release.

[Snicket]

Originally Posted by 5th Of November

I'm talking about actual 4K Blu-ray discs to be released in the future, not 4K downconverted to 1080P, which is what Mastered in 4K is. You'll need a new player to play 4K Blu-ray discs. You don't need a new player to play Mastered in 4K downconverted to 1080p.

That's not what Sony is talking about though, and that tech is a looooooooong ways away.